Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Soul Cocina's Cumbia Clandestina Mix brings together many types of Cumbia into one mix. There's music from Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Venezuela, USA, Cuba and beyond. Two or three cumbia digital tracks, plenty of cumbias clasicas, some cumbia sonideras, villeras, guarachas, porros, chicha.... Some of the sonideras come from mix CDs from Mexican and US sound systems like Grupo Kual and other Sonidos from Puebla, DF, and Monterey, Mexico. A few come from mixes from DJ's like Alex Perez from Chicago. The cumbias clasicas mostly come from records I have picked up over the years in the US, Latin America, and Europe. The cumbias digitales come from internet downloads from sites like Muy Bastard. I did not include too much nueva cumbia digital, but there is a lot available on the world wide web for downloads. Just search blogs for Chico Sonido, Sonido Martines, Villa Diamante, Oro 11, and the Zizek crew from Argentina and the Tormenta Tropical crew from the SF Bay. I like the Nueva Cumbia that stays close to the original music.. but the experimental stuff is fun too. Some of my favorites are La Super Cumbia Futurista, Chico Sonido and Los Wendys

A lot of sound systems in Latin America are called Sonidos, some sound systems in Colombia are called Picos (Pico Soul Cocina has a nice ring to it)I made this mix to listen to at work.. then I decided to post it here.. so I did not make a tracklisting. With all the requests... I am revisiting the cds, records, and mp3s to put together a tracklist. Some of the tunes come from unlabeled street CDRs. If anyone can help with the few unknown tunes, please drop some knowledge in the comments. Tracklist for Vol I is complete.. Vol II and III coming soon.Big shout out to Salvador, Celso, El Chilango and DJ Rolond from 26 Mix for the Guatemala, DF and Puebla Sonidera Mixes that inspired this Cumbia Clandestina Mix.

I didn't include Cumbia de Obama, but you can see the video, read the lyrics and download the song here.

In April Soul Cocina will present a Cumbia Brunch in San Francisco. We will feature the cuisine of the cumbia diaspora in a prix fix menu, a cumbia dancefloor, and of course, cumbia music.

In san Francisco we have plenty of Peruvian and Salvadoran restaurants, but there are very few Colombian restaurants. I picked up some sancocho de gallina with arepas and chorizo to go with the Cumbia Clandestina Mix at Majahual Restaurant in my neighborhood. Arepas are South American tortillas. They are different from Mexican and Salvadorean tortillas because of the special type of corn flour. I learned how to make arepas and empanadas in Venezuela. I was taking a nap on a park bench and a street cleaner woke me up and told me it was not safe for tourists to nap in that park. We began to chit chat, and when she found out that I was a chef looking for recipes and records.. she invited me to her home for a lesson in arepas and empanadas. Her daughter was studying tourism, so she was excited to show me her city, Caracas, and help me find vinyl records and cassette tapes. I still remember my Un Solo Pueblo tape that I bought on that trip.. I need to convert it to digital sound. This was in 2000. Hugo Chavez had just taken office, and my hosts were strong supporters. Turns out Marisa (the street cleaner) was working for a program under Chavez's Plan Bolivar besides arepas and empanadas, I also learned how to prepare a glorious condiment used for the late night street hot dogs called Guasacaca (nice name?!)The guasacaca sauce that I learned to make and that I tasted all over Caracas is made from avacados, parsley, hot peppers, green pepers, oil, vinegar, and garlic.The recipes I see in books and on the web are all very different from this. They are more like guacamole. The guasacaca I grew to know and love is pureed up to a smooth sauce. I like guasacaca with plain or cheese arepas, but in Caracas, guasacaca seemed to be used as a condiment for hot dogs.

Arepas are made from a dough made from peeled corn kernals (maiz pilado) that are ground and par-cooked, then mixed with water. Today, most people buy arepa flour, which is cornmeal made from a specific part of the corn kernal (cotyledons) that has been partially cooked. There is no Nixtamalization process for arepa corn flour. Once you get the arepa flour, it is just like making fat tortillas or stuffed pupusas. many recipes call for oil or butter and even milk in arepas, but I learned to make arepas with just water and salt. They can be stuffed with cheese or meat.I am excited to try out the Pica Pica South American restaurant in Napa at the Oxbow Public Market

While I was making this mix I heard Hellicopters swarming above our house. I looked out to find a 4 alarm fire a few blocks away, down the hill, in a building we used to live in a few years ago. Here is what I saw from our back door.